There’s growing concern that the U.S. is losing pace in semiconductor start-ups (although we’ve seen intriguing outliers leveraging crowd-funding to make products). Rick Merritt at EE Times, in a recent piece, quoted Cadence CEO Lip-Bu Tan as framing a more dire situation than most have suspected. According to Merritt: “China and India are pouring money” into semiconductors and “the U.S.

By Brian Fuller We asked a lot of questions on our drive around the U.S. about how we’re enabling the next generation of innovation, the new engineering classes. We found many STEM challenges but a lot of inspiration, from Don Morgan — a one-man Army of inspiration in the Georgia public school system — to engineer Christina Richards in Texas

By Brian Fuller Innovation is about a lot of different things. Partly it’s about flexible thinking, being creative. Partly it’s about taking risk. One thing that often gets overlooked in innovation is raw spending power. If you put  money into R&D, the odds are that you are going to be a little bit more innovative than the next company. One

By Jennifer Delony You’ve seen the highlights here on the Drive for Innovation; programs across the U.S. are beginning to deliver more resources and funding to help students thrive in technology studies and deliver on an innovative future. We met Don Morgan of Brooks County High School, who strives to build an engineering program in an agriculture town, and we made

By Brian Fuller Apple’s got a problem these days, and it’s not just a shareholder value problem. It’s a problem that faces most mature electronics companies at one point or another: It’s new-product innovation pipeline is gummed up. But first let’s recap: The popular concern today is that Apple share price is off significantly since last year and that there

By Brian Fuller PHOENIX–Was beer really the last great innovation in civilization? Of course the answer is “not really,” but Wade McDaniel and I share a good laugh when he brings it up. We’ve seen tons of innovation since the Sumerians figured out how to craft a fermented elixir that wouldn’t kill whoever consumed it. But the argument’s been put

By Malcolm Fuller, contributing writer Remember the speculation about what kinds of technology the new millennium would have to offer? Now we haven’t seen a flying car yet, but Saturna Green Systems in Vancouver, B.C., has developed a product that brings wireless communication and networking to two- and three-wheel electric scooter and motorcycle manufacturers. And from an electronics-design standpoint, they’re

SAN JOSE, Calif.–When Michael Worry brought his new-born daughter home, the first place he took her, even before he entered the house was his workshop. He put her hand on a drill and said the word “drill” to her. “Society gets what it celebrates,” says the CEO of Nuvation, based here. “If we’re just as excited and passionate about building things

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–A key part of any stop on the year-long Drive for Innovation was interacting with engineers either examining our Chevy Volt or driving it around. Everyone has a design suggestion. Analog Devices took it to the next level, in the Fall of 2011, by hosting an outdoor reception during which employees put Sticky-note design suggestions all over the car. That sparked